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State Duma committee insists on intensifying support to compatriots living abroad

The State Duma will insist on bigger allocations for supporting compatriots

MOSCOW, May 11 (Itar-Tass) —— The State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots will present to the house a draft appeal to President Vladimir Putin for intensifying support to compatriots living abroad, Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky told a Friday press conference.

“It is necessary to intensify the interaction with compatriots living in former Soviet republics and other states,” he said. The committee will also discuss the resettlement program carried out by the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation. “This is the question of the return of compatriots to Russia,” he said.

The resettlement program tempo is unsatisfactory so far, Slutsky said, citing a shortage of state allocations as a reason. “We have a global task of the consolidation of the Russian world. This is not a goal one may be economical about,” he said.

The State Duma will insist on bigger allocations for supporting compatriots, who live abroad, already in the drafting of budget 2013, Slutsky said.

It is necessary to understand what the Eurasian integration course “could give to average peoples and voters,” he said. “Far from all support this idea now. They attribute it to the chiefs of state only. So contacts with the compatriots must be more energetic,” he said.